In a network environment, allowing a user to have a consistent view of the operating environment requires information from a variety of sources. Sometimes these sources overlap in terms of the information available, and arbitrary decisions may need to be made about where the information to present to the user comes from.
When a user logs in to a system, the user is able to manage objects associated with that system. The user may be granted different sets of privileges on those objects having to do with the ability to view, update, remove, or operate on those objects.
For instance, a user may have a view of a virtual environment on the network. You can either query each host, each VM or query server that manages all of the hosts and virtual machines. You are liable to get some duplicate and some different information from each source.
What is needed is a process for sourcing and compositing information for a user so that the user has a consistent view of his environment.